Browsing California

The 4th annual HIGH TIMES San Francisco Bay Area Medical Cannabis Cup is returning to Richmond, CA on Saturday, June 22-23. After a very successful US Cannabis Cup in Denver last month, HIGH TIMES is headed to the Bay Area for the fourth year in a row to hold the regional cannabis competition. The event will feature cultivation and activism seminars with HIGH TIMES editors and many other familiar faces in the cannabis movement. “Only California residents with a valid California doctor’s recommendation or California medical marijuana card will be allowed to enter the Prop 215 area to …

Despite a 1996 state law that permitted the use of medical marijuana for medical purposes, the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of local municipalities right to ban medical marijuana dispensaries earlier today. The main issue in the case, Inland Empire Patients Health & Wellness Center, Inc., was whether California’s medical marijuana statute preempts a local ban on dispensaries. The court ruled in a 7-0 decision that it doesn’t. Neither the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 (CUA) nor the Medical Marijuana Program (MPP) expressly (or impliedly) limit the authority of local municipalities to enact their own …

Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl made a YouTube announcement yesterday, May 2 that his cancer is officially in remission due to the incredible healing powers of cannabis. “Frankly I was given the death sentence,” Rosendahl said about his diagnosis for Stage 4 cancer last summer. He was given only two months to live and was told that he wouldn’t see the November elections due to his cancer of the uterer. After “five months of hell” Rosendahl was encouraged to try medical marijuana by his incredible doctor at St. Johns. Although he was already using the plant to treat his …

According to MMJ Business Daily, California’s medical marijuana market is the largest in the country, with annual retail sales between $700 million and $900. However, the grass is not as green as it may appear, at least in this case. Although the medical marijuana being provided in California is some of the best in the world, “a lack of state-wide regulations on dispensaries has created a unpredictable business climate that leaves itself open to chaos.” “This is a concrete plan that will keep medical marijuana safe. We will get it into the right hands and keep it …

Mayor Bob Filner announced his final proposal is complete and ready for discussion in the City Council meeting tentatively scheduled for March 25th. Local governments, police, and both district and state attorneys have treated the medical marijuana community in San Diego rather unfairly over the years. With no real representation, the community has been bullied by the feds with the assistance of local authorities. Luckily, Mayor Filner is able to see through the ignorance of it all and is working to move forward with regulations to establish permanent safe access in San Diego. Yesterday, the Mayor’s office …

MedBox Inc., the leader in biometrically controlled dispensing and storage systems, has plans to launch 30 branded dispensaries in San Diego. Although delivery service dispensaries in San Diego are hardly clinging to life, a proposed ordinance could possibly allow for as many as 100 storefronts to open in the near future. The ordinance would allow many dispensary owners to re-open businesses, and would pave the way for other entrepreneurs looking to get involved in the industry. One such company that has their eye on San Diego, MedBox Inc. (OTC Pink: MDBX), programs and …

Advocates on both sides of the debate are watching closely to see which way state Supreme Court justices will lean in an effort to clear the air about medical marijuana dispensaries. Since 1996, when California voters enacted the Compassionate Use Act (Proposition 215), the legal use of medical marijuana has prompted impassioned discussion among those for and against the distribution and sale of medical cannabis. The act provides patients with a valid doctor’s recommendation an avenue through which to possess and cultivate marijuana for personal use. The question has always been, and continues to be, how to best create an …

Newly elected mayor of San Diego, Bob Filner has been working rigorously to help protect and promote the medical marijuana industry. For San Diegans, this issue has never been more crucial due to recent police raids and legal action taken against hundreds of local medical marijuana dispensaries. Said raids on these medicinal marijuana dispensaries have resulted in the loss of more than a thousand jobs, and are locally viewed as a financial and ethical strain on the city. An ordinance has been proposed in Council that could bring the medical marijuana industry back to life in San Diego. With mounting …

According to a recent article by the New York Times, Californians are more likely to give you the boot at public venues for sparking up a cigarette, than a joint. A study by the California Office of Traffic Safety found that motorists are more likely to be driving under the influence of marijuana than under the influence of alcohol. “Marijuana can be smelled in suburban backyards in neighborhoods from Hollywood to Topanga Canyon as dusk falls — what in other places is known as the cocktail hour — often wafting in from three sides. In some homes in Beverly Hills …

California’s Lieutenant Governor, Gavin Newsom, now joins the movement publicly. When asked about marijuana legalization, he told the New York Times in this interview: “These recreational marijuana users are incredibly upstanding citizens: Leaders in our community, and exceptional people. Increasingly, people are willing to share how they use it and not be ashamed of it… These laws just don’t make sense anymore. It’s time for politicians to come out of the closet on this.” Is this the beginning of the end for marijuana prohibition? Only time will tell… but we think so. MANTIS_RECOMMEND = { property: …